It was on this day (21 September) 125 years ago that our club played its first ever match.
St Sidwell’s United (who changed their name to Exeter City in 1904) hosted Dawlish at their home ground off Pinhoe Road. Thanks to newspaper reports we can piece together the occasion.
The match was played on a Saturday afternoon with a 3.15pm kick off. The local Evening Post previewed the encounter the day before stating it was the first outing of the season for both clubs. Importantly the names of the players in our first ever game were then listed: Robinson, Flood, Campbell, Avery, Mann, Hawkey, Morgan, Sellick, Thomas, Eveleigh and Coles. The team wore green and white kit – colours used by the Club until 1910.
There are some significant figures in the line up. Sid Thomas was one of the founders of the Club and along with Edward Eveleigh had attended the meeting of the Exeter and District Junior League on 3 June 1901. This is the first time the name St Sidwell’s United appears in the press. Thomas went on to spend an amazing eight decades in various roles at the Club while Eveleigh was good enough to get a trial at Portsmouth.
The little we know about our first ground is thanks to reminiscences by Sid Thomas in the Football Express in 1939. Sid remembered ‘This little team operated at first in a field on which Monks Road has now been built. In those days there were very few houses on that side of Mount Pleasant and the whole of the land down to the bottom of Pinhoe Road was entirely unbuilt on.
‘I remember well that we tried to take a gate in those days and had a sentry box placed at the entrance to the ground. Result of the first game was something like 9d was collected’.
Newspaper match reports add to our knowledge of the ground – particularly two features. One was the significant slope of the pitch, the other was that teams playing up the slope might have to cope with the low winter sun.
St Sidwell’s played at Pinhoe Road for two seasons before moving to St James Park in 1903. The very close proximity of the two grounds would have made the move easy.
And so to the Dawlish game itself. The Evening Post had a brief same day report referring to St Sidwell’s as ‘The Saints’. Within weeks the nickname ‘The Grecians’ was being used. The Post wrote: ‘The Saints played a fine forward game, and in the first half the Dawlish keeper was beaten by two fine shots from Marshall and Sellick. In the second half the home team had to face the sun, but continued to hold their own and Eveleigh scored another goal. Dawlish turned the tables and scored through Knapman from a penalty. St Sidwells soon scored again by Coles and Dawlish replying with another, the home side won by 4 goals to 2’.
A week later The Evening Post reflected some more saying St Sidwell’s had ‘played remarkably well considering they had such weight to play against’. The defenders were ‘very safe’, the half backs ‘in fine trim’ and the forwards ‘played well together, and their passing was very neat; but unfortunately, they would at times overrun the ball’.
The Dawlish press were critical of their team. The Dawlish Gazette said: ‘the victors are a new organisation. They proved smart, but not to the extent to justify the licking given to Dawlish. The fact of the matter was that the locals seemed to have started the season before they were ready, and took away a poor team to do duty’.
And so the excuses for defeats at our hands had started. Our Club’s playing history was underway and 125 years later how grateful we are for the early pioneers.